Blown launch at Palomar
Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2016 1:49 pm
The rumors are true; I blew a launch at Palomar on Saturday, and I might as well tell the story.
While visiting Sylmar a week earlier, Martin Palmaz of USHPA told me that he’d be at Palomar for their fly-in on the 16th. That sounded like a good enough reason to go explore a new site, and in response to my queries, the Sylmar contingent eventually consisted of Joe and Kris Greblo, Will Ramsey, Richard and Kat Shaw, and myself. There were one or two other visiting hang gliders, and a whole lot of paragliders, both locals and visitors. It’s an attractive site, with a west-facing launch about 2300 feet above the LZ, and the drive up is direct and easy.
Most of the launch area has a very shallow slope, and it gets somewhat steeper towards the bottom of the cleared area. The wind was more or less zero on Saturday, with the streamers near the top of the launch area showing a tailwind more often than not, while those at the bottom would sometimes show that it was blowing in. I’ve logged several tailwind launches recently on various gliders, so I figured this would just be another one and it wasn’t a big deal. In retrospect, I think that was my basic mistake; tailwind launches are always a big deal. The result is that I didn’t guard my margin, and let lots of little things eat away at it.
I suited up and moved my U2 in line amongst a sea of paragliders. As those ahead picked their cycles and launched, I moved my glider down the shallow area until finally nobody was in front of me. In the process, I unwittingly let go of quite a lot of shallow-slope running area, and was left with a pretty short ramp that still wasn’t very steep. There was a long line of people waiting impatiently behind me, so I didn’t make much effort to pick a good cycle, and just figured I could make it work. The streamers in front of me showed a little life, so I started my launch run, though undoubtedly the streamers behind me were blowing down. Others report that I had the glider’s nose too high; I’m a little surprised given the shallow launch, but they’re most likely right. At the end of the ramp, the glider was still heavy on my shoulders. I continued running through the brush below the ramp, and I’m fuzzy on the details, but evidently that didn’t go so well. My right wing dropped, started dragging through the brush, and the glider and I skidded sideways to a halt. I have a vivid image of the control bar going through a couple little yuccas, along with all those yucca-thoughts: I’m sure glad my hands aren’t there! Are there bigger yuccas ahead? How many holes will I have before this is over with? In fact, I got away with only a couple of scratches, and the only damage to the glider was three bent battens in the right wingtip. Curiously, my left leg was so sore that I couldn’t really operate a clutch, and Joe Greblo had to drive home. I can only figure that this was from tensing my legs before impact. I do know that I end up with stiff legs after flying low over tiger country with limited landing options, and that doesn’t make any sense either.
Maybe there’s a moral here about complacency and managing one’s safety margin. Maybe this just indicates the amount of risk I choose to accept in my flying style. I suspect that both are true.
While visiting Sylmar a week earlier, Martin Palmaz of USHPA told me that he’d be at Palomar for their fly-in on the 16th. That sounded like a good enough reason to go explore a new site, and in response to my queries, the Sylmar contingent eventually consisted of Joe and Kris Greblo, Will Ramsey, Richard and Kat Shaw, and myself. There were one or two other visiting hang gliders, and a whole lot of paragliders, both locals and visitors. It’s an attractive site, with a west-facing launch about 2300 feet above the LZ, and the drive up is direct and easy.
Most of the launch area has a very shallow slope, and it gets somewhat steeper towards the bottom of the cleared area. The wind was more or less zero on Saturday, with the streamers near the top of the launch area showing a tailwind more often than not, while those at the bottom would sometimes show that it was blowing in. I’ve logged several tailwind launches recently on various gliders, so I figured this would just be another one and it wasn’t a big deal. In retrospect, I think that was my basic mistake; tailwind launches are always a big deal. The result is that I didn’t guard my margin, and let lots of little things eat away at it.
I suited up and moved my U2 in line amongst a sea of paragliders. As those ahead picked their cycles and launched, I moved my glider down the shallow area until finally nobody was in front of me. In the process, I unwittingly let go of quite a lot of shallow-slope running area, and was left with a pretty short ramp that still wasn’t very steep. There was a long line of people waiting impatiently behind me, so I didn’t make much effort to pick a good cycle, and just figured I could make it work. The streamers in front of me showed a little life, so I started my launch run, though undoubtedly the streamers behind me were blowing down. Others report that I had the glider’s nose too high; I’m a little surprised given the shallow launch, but they’re most likely right. At the end of the ramp, the glider was still heavy on my shoulders. I continued running through the brush below the ramp, and I’m fuzzy on the details, but evidently that didn’t go so well. My right wing dropped, started dragging through the brush, and the glider and I skidded sideways to a halt. I have a vivid image of the control bar going through a couple little yuccas, along with all those yucca-thoughts: I’m sure glad my hands aren’t there! Are there bigger yuccas ahead? How many holes will I have before this is over with? In fact, I got away with only a couple of scratches, and the only damage to the glider was three bent battens in the right wingtip. Curiously, my left leg was so sore that I couldn’t really operate a clutch, and Joe Greblo had to drive home. I can only figure that this was from tensing my legs before impact. I do know that I end up with stiff legs after flying low over tiger country with limited landing options, and that doesn’t make any sense either.
Maybe there’s a moral here about complacency and managing one’s safety margin. Maybe this just indicates the amount of risk I choose to accept in my flying style. I suspect that both are true.